HC Deb 27 March 1912 vol 36 cc566-7W
Mr. ALDEN

asked the Postmaster-General how many third-class clerks are at present employed in the offices of superintending engineers in London and the provinces; how many promotions of third-class clerks, superintending engineers' offices, have been made to second-class clerkships during the past ten years; the average age of such officers when (promoted; and the number of promotions of third-class clerks that have been made direct to the first class of clerks during the past ten years?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

The particulars asked for by the hon. Member are not all available, but I will communicate to him by letter such of them as can be obtained.

Mr. ALDEN

asked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of his adoption of the Hobhouse Committee's recommendation that Post Office servants employed in London shall receive a higher scale of pay as compared with that assigned to Post Office servants performing similar duties in the provinces, on the ground of the increased cost of living, he will state the reason for employing assistant clerks in the engineering department of the Post Office in London at a scale of pay which is less, in their earlier years of service, than that of clerical assistants who are employed upon corresponding duties in the provincial districts of the engineering department; and will he state, in addition, the reason for granting twenty-one days' annual leave after five years of service to the latter class, as against only eighteen days granted to the former after ten years of service?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

Assistant clerks are a class common to the whole Civil Service, and I am not primarily concerned in questions concerning their pay and privileges, nor was their case considered by the Hobhouse Committee. The Prime Minister stated on the 11th instant, in reply to the hon. Member for East Leeds, that the question of the remuneration of clerical Civil servants would not be excluded from the scope of the inquiry by the Royal Commission of which Lord Macdonnell is chairman, and the case of the assistant clerks may come before them. Clerical assistants are a Post Office class. Their period of leave was fixed by me on the same scale as that applicable to sorting clerks and telegraphists.